27 September 2007

That special project

OK, so back at the end of august I posted a review of the month, and I mentioned I managed to pull off a "special project" without Cory knowing. Well, she knows now. :)

As anyone that meet us around the time of the engagement through wedding knows, I designed a custom ring for her, two ribbons of gold (one white, other yellow) spun around each other with three pockets opened up between them holding three diamonds. Everyone that's seen it has universally loved it. I had spent a lot of time going around to various jewelry stores looking for what I wanted, none really had it. I asked at several if they could get it, or make it, none were interested. Then I visited Rochester Lapidary. I had taken a simple cad sketch with me, and they were happy to custom fabricate it for me after picking out stones. At the time it was a matter of spending a few hours with one of their designers, then coming back in three weeks to see the finished piece. Needless to say, it wasn't 100% what I wanted, but it was still pretty damn awesome. These days, the process is a whole lot better. :)

So when we learned Cory was pregnant, I had decided that I wanted to get her a pendant to commemorate the event. I spent a LONG time looking at the "mother and child" pendants that are all the rage these days. One simple glaringly obvious thing stood out about every single design I ever saw. All these women must have been single mothers, because not a single one of them had any kind of father in place.

Well, fuck that.

I don't have an Arts degree for nothing.

I can do better than that.

So I went directly to my old buddies at Rochester Lapidary. These days the process for custom designed jewelry is a lot different. They render it in 3D on a CAD system, and not until you approve of the rendering do they proceed to use a CAM system to cut a wax model. Approval of the wax model will allow it to go to casting. At both steps we ended up revising it to get it to the point of what I had in my head.

Here's their first interpretation of the scribbled drawing I made there, and the hour or so of chat with their designer:

And here's the final render of what was sent to the CAD/CAM to cut the wax:

Which is amazingly close to the final work:

That's my Alexandrite on the left, Cory's Zircon on the right and Quinn's Peridot on the bottom (duh).